


can't help but wonder what you thought I would do

by darklanguages



Series: pistols at dawn [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Blackwatch Era, M/M, Slow Build, Trauma Recovery, less porny than previous installments sorry, well as slow as it can be when it's this short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 08:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19741819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklanguages/pseuds/darklanguages
Summary: It took minutes to tear Genji Shimada apart.It takes years to put him back together.





	can't help but wonder what you thought I would do

**Author's Note:**

> previous parts do not have to be read first, though they do provide some context

Fluorescent lights on shining steel.

Fluorescent lights on expanding pools of blood.

Fluorescent lights on ceilings - dojo, train, plane, hospital. Unfamiliar faces pass by, and every one of them has hard dark eyes and an unsmiling mouth burned on top of them, every face wears a carefully shaped beard and tufted eyebrows, every mouth says  _ not good enough, never good enough, needs to be disciplined _ -

Genji knows pain, has been familiar with it since childhood and learning what it meant to be a Shimada. He’s past pain, now. Past the point of feeling, both physically and emotionally. He wonders, in the rare moments of clarity, what’s left of him. He doesn’t know if the lack of sensation is his mind trying to protect him from reality, or if there just isn’t anything left to feel.

He doesn’t know which one he would prefer.

A good part of it must be the drugs, because they bring him out of it, once. Just once. He starts to understand voices - speaking English, he thinks. He isn’t coherent enough to determine accents that might give a hint as to where he was. Someone bends over him. Female, possibly. They say something about needing to talk to him, needing his consent.

Consent. Hah. Now there is an unfamiliar concept.

More someones, light and dark, deeper voices. They argue with each other, too fast for him to translate in his head. Finally they bend over him, and Genji does his best to focus. There’s an offer from the light one - rebuild him better, faster. He notices, even through the fading drugs and increasing pain, that they don’t say what they will rebuild. Genji swallows - he can swallow, at least that is something, although there’s sharp pain in his throat - and someone holds up water a moment later for him to sip.

“Payment?” it’s more air than words, but they seem to understand him. Genji is a Shimada, much as he would rather it be otherwise - he knows that nothing ever, ever comes for free. The dark head leans down and comes into focus and - Genji panics.

Frowning brows and dark eyes and downturned mouth and the beard and he’s back he’s back Hanzo is going to finish the job -

There’s a rapid beeping and raised voices and then coolness in his veins and a veil over his vision. 

“...at did you do?” the female voice from earlier, angry now.

“Nothing! Didn’t say a damn word.” Lower, male.

“If he strokes out this will all be for nothing.”

“I know, Zeigler, I know. Let me try again. He’s sedated, is he still coherent enough to be compos mentis?”

“Yes, but for a limited time, Commander. Make it fast before I need to put him under again.”

There’s a shadow leaning over him once more, and Genji’s reactions are slowed enough to notice this time that the skin is too dark, the eyes too light, a hundred things that mark this as a stranger and not his brother. The shadow is speaking.

“We’ll put you back together, Mr Shimada. Make you into a real boy. In return, you help us take down your clan. I expect you don’t have much love for them right now, so I’d say this is a deal you come out on top of.” 

There’s more, but Genji doesn’t pay attention. He nods, the best he can with his head wrapped up as it is. The voice above him sounds satisfied.

The ice in his veins spreads, and Genji closes his eyes and lets himself freeze.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Genji’s life is pumped through wires and tubes, now. Even his chin is artificial - black carbon supports that eat into the bone of his jaw like a cancer. He dreams of the rubber and plastic creeping upwards, sealing his mouth shut and then his nose, letting him feel himself dying before it covers his eyes and he jolts awake into blackness. 

His right arm is gone, both legs below the thigh. It’s only the smallest of condolences that he’s left handed. Most everything else is intact, more or less. Sometimes less. There are scars in unexpected places, that begin as a raw, vivid scarlet before fading to a dull burgundy. Some are painfully sensitive, others have no feeling at all, and there’s no rhyme or reason as to which is which. 

Once he’s loopy on a new drug cocktail, and makes a joke to the doctor changing the bandages on his shoulder about getting circumcised at the age of twenty five. Genji laughs until he’s out of breath, until his vision is eaten up by darkness and he blessedly passes out. The doctor stares at him the entire time, frozen.

The first time he sees himself in the mirror, he’s transported back to being a child and dressing up as an oni demon - everything black, red, and white. He’s ghostly pale from being inside for...weeks? Months? He has no idea. His hair long grew its last color out - what was it? Green, he thinks - and is back to inky black. The eyes are the most startling, red and unnatural. Not just the color, they don’t dilate quite right, there’s something  _ wrong _ about them.

At his next appointment with Dr. Ziegler, he brings them up. She gives a shrug, like it’s something unimportant and not his primary connection to the world. “They have certain...upgrades,” she says. “Once we have your armor finished, everything should integrate properly. It should be a smooth process.”

The way everyone had described it, rebuilding his body would be a painless procedure. Plug-and-play, as one scientist had put it.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

All his healing is undone, the tender skin ripped open so delicate cybernetics can be grafted onto hair-thin nerves by microscope. He has to be conscious for all of it, so they can test the body-brain connection. To flex when they tell him to, and see if it results in his arm curling or blinding pain. It’s often both.

The second day they inject something into his larynx so he’ll stop screaming.

He’s thankful, truly - his throat was starting to hurt. Just one more little pain, added on to everything else. A small kindness. 

It takes time. Genji doesn’t know how much, his life is an unending continuum of pain and surgery and physical therapy. It hurts, physically at least, far more than the original destruction of his body. This is building him up, though, as opposed to half of his heart being torn out of him. 

Nothing will ever be able to hurt quite like that again.

Eventually they say it’s done. Genji is skeptical. He’s in one piece, able to walk. Able to run, able to jump terrifyingly high. The pistons in his knees and ankles are something new, something that hasn’t been tried before. Everything Genji is now is an experiment, proprietary technology and information that masquerades as a body. They put him in what they call ‘testing of gross and fine motor skills’, but it’s really just to stretch him as far as he can. What he can handle now, how fast, how strong, how much more more more. 

His eyes do indeed integrate - there are patterns of blinks that will bring up system reports in front of his eyes, glowing red and invisible to everyone but him. Genji starts to feel like the only one that can see ghosts. The thought occurs to him late one night that if he had been one of the programmers, he would have hidden code that would let him play games, true virtual reality. The thought drifts away - it’s hard to hang on to any pleasant things, now.

When he gets control enough to start to refine things, to train instead of just walk, Reyes shows up. He sits at a table across from Genji, and they drink their respective coffee and tea silently for a good hour. Genji is sure it is some type of test, is equally sure that he doesn’t care what it is.

Eventually Reyes speaks. It’s time to pay the piper, he says. He has a choice, between Morrison’s Overwatch and Reyes’s Blackwatch. 

Genji looks at Reyes steadily, with his eyes that he knows unnerve people. To his credit, Reyes doesn’t so much as blink. “Which one will let me get vengeance?” he says, finally.

Reyes smiles.

-x-x-x-x-x-

At first it’s appraisal and training. To his surprise, it’s all academic at first. Oh, he speaks how many languages? Fine, then he’ll be put through rigorous testing to see where his fluency falls from ‘ordering at a restaurant’ through ‘able to argue in a courtroom’. His knowledge of the history of Japan, Overwatch, the UN, and the world as a whole are put to the test, and it’s only the hell his tutors had put him through as a child that lets him get through the affair with any grace. Abilities are documented, everything from being able to play the shamisen to knowledge of how to dance in clubs to being able to dye hair. 

Blackwatch agents are stripped down, built up, and used like the precision weapons they are. Genji finds a comfort in that, in having a singular purpose that he doesn’t have to think about.

The physical tests are...something else. He’s made to fight against every agent Blackwatch has, with Reyes and Zeigler watching everything through a magnifying glass to see how his new body can handle it all. There’s no coddling, no pity in any of it - when the massive Beukes throws him into a wall and shatters his right knee, the main concern is why the knee shattered in the first place, not how much pain Genji is in from the raw nerves sparking on the air.

It gets perfected, stabilized. They give him swords and shuriken, assign him to Reyes’s strike team. He’s not sure if it is because he’s good - and he is in fact very, very good - or because they want Reyes to keep an eye on him. Both, perhaps.

Reyes himself is completely upfront and a total enigma, both at the same time. He runs Blackwatch with ruthless precision, treating every mission with the utmost care for preparation and execution. Simultaneously, he gives his teams a surprising amount of leeway and initiative, and lets his agents talk back to him with a freedom that frequently shocks Morrison and Amari. Reyes laughs off their disapproval. He says that their plans are better with multiple inputs and integration, and Genji has to admit that he’s right. The vast array of experiences the teams can draw from are nothing to laugh at.

O’Deorain annoys Genji. She likes to think that she’s the smartest person in the room - true, in a ‘has the most university degrees’ sense, but when they’re in the trenches and fighting, knowing how to sequence DNA isn’t very helpful. Thankfully she’s in her labs most of the time. Genji knows she’s had a hand in the weaponry they use, but is happy to not know how much. 

McCree is the last person on the team, and between Reyes’s duties and O’Deorain’s lab work, he turns out to be the person Genji spends the most time with. He’s...frustratingly opaque. During socializing he’s friendly and gregarious. On mission he’s serious and throws himself into every role. But when it’s just the two of them, or the two of them and Reyes - it seems that no one truly trusts O’Deorain - he shuts down. Like there’s a program he’s been running and he’s in standby mode. It’s not unpleasant - he’s quiet and thoughtful, far more intelligent than he presents himself as to the public, even to the other strike teams.

He makes Genji nervous. Anyone who can flip on a dime like that is not to be trusted.

It makes more sense when he learns that McCree has been with Blackwatch for a decade, hand picked and trained by Reyes. The thought occurs to Genji more than once that he would dearly love to see Reyes and his father go head to head in a battle of the wills. There might be no survivors at the end, but it would certainly be a show. 

He and McCree end up talking, because even the most reticent of people get bored during twelve hour stakeouts. At first it’s just teaching each other card games both professional and from childhood, gambling for breathmints and bullets and coins from a hundred nations. Genji is frustratingly bad at it - infuriating, as he had gambled his way through the best casinos in Asia. Finally McCree takes pity, tells him that the cards reflect in his unnatural eyes. They don’t play for some time after that.

McCree regularly offers him the narrow cigars he smokes, but Genji turns them down regretfully. His right lung was apparently jigsaw puzzled back together, and he’s been told in no uncertain terms that smoke or inhalants of any kind would destroy it. He had been given lectures on exactly which drugs not to do - all of them - and what the effects on his body would be if he disobeyed. Genji has been sober for the longest stretch of time since he was thirteen and does not like it.

One night in some ramshackle town in Australia, Reyes and O’Deorain out scouting a gang, McCree offers him a sip from his hip flask. Genji takes it, but just stares at it. He had not been told he could drink alcohol, but he hadn’t been told he couldn't, either. 

“Sorry, that another thing you can’t do?” McCree asks, and Genji blinks himself back to reality. 

“No, I...do not know, actually.” Genji shrugs, then unscrews the cap. Such a small thing, but it suddenly feels the closest he’s been to his old self in a long, long time. He thoughtlessly touches the catches at his temples, releasing his faceplate. He takes a long drink, and the burn down his throat is sweet. Genji’s eyes close for a long moment, and he’s unaware of the almost peaceful look on his face.

When he opens his eyes, it’s to find McCree studying him. Not the way the scientists do, as if he’s something to be dissected and analyzed and recorded. Not even the way Reyes or Morrison do, as if they were cataloguing every possible use of a weapon. Instead it is as if he’s just...taking Genji in. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you without your mask before,” he says. “Sorry for starin’.”

Genji realizes that yes, his face is in fact bare in front of McCree. It’s something he only allows scientists to see out of necessity. He doesn’t eat with the others as his body only requires a highly controlled and regulated nutrient slurry, though he was told that he could consume liquids if he wished. He should feel upset, Genji thinks to himself. But something about how McCree looks at him - cataloguing, but not in a way that says it’s to use him…

Genji is all right with it, for whatever reason.

“It’s...not something that I do. Normally,” he says eventually. “But this is my first taste of alcohol in -” he shakes his head. “I don’t even know how long.”

McCree waves him off when Genji offers him back the flask. “Finish it, sounds like you need it.” 

Genji takes another sip, smaller this time, and hands the flask back. “I fear my tolerance is gone, I would not want our esteemed commander to return to me drunk.”

A laugh, warm and full. “Reyes has seen me sloshed more times’n I can count. I doubt he’d blink an eye at you bein’ a bit tipsy.”

Genji smiles a bit at that, and he can feel his scars tugging and pulling in unfamiliar ways. McCree’s laugh dies down, and he’s back to examining Genji’s face with those steady brown eyes.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before.”

Genji rolls his red eyes. “Of course you have not, you have never seen me without the faceplate.”

McCree shakes his head. “Don’t need a mouth to smile. You see it in the eyes.”

Genji nods hesitantly at that, and they fall into companionable silence, waiting for their teammates’ return.

-x-x-x-x-x-

He’s surprised at how much they don’t actually kill people, given the group’s reputation. Genji says as much to McCree, who shrugs.

“It’s not…’s not that we don’t kill people. It’s that we know  _ when _ to kill them, and when to cover it up. And it’s not just us. I’m not killin’ for Jesse, I’m killin’ for Blackwatch so I gotta think about how it’s gonna fuck all of that up, fuck up future ops for my teammates.” 

“That seems to be far more thoughtful, careful than people tend to give Reyes and the group credit for.”

McCree rolls his eyes. “Not sayin’ we don’t drop bodies on the regular, but gettin’ rid of ‘em is more trouble than it’s worth, half the time. Easier to knock ‘em out or sneak things. Trouble is, it’s a lot easier to kill someone than to know how hard to hit so they’re down but not dead.” A shrug, a sip of beer. “We do what we have to do.”

Genji nods, thoughtful. He’s nearing the end of his probation period - more to keep an eye on his body’s functionality than him - and Reyes told him he’ll be sent out on more solo or partnered missions soon, as opposed to being with the full team. He keeps McCree’s words in mind as he watches during their outings, how Reyes runs things and how the team carries it out.

They’re at a hotel bar in Toronto, one that doesn’t blink at Genji’s mechanical additions as long as they’re covered by expensive enough clothing. He sits at a table with Reyes, who lounges back almost indecently as he sips whisky and murmurs over his earpiece to McCree. They’re just backup tonight, as McCree raids the target’s hotel room upstairs for information, because the target in question supposedly is nasty enough that if it goes badly then all hell will break loose.

Reyes suddenly sits up and tosses bills down, making a small motion with his head at Genji. They wait outside for ten minutes, until McCree finally walks out. His bow tie and the first few buttons of his shirt are undone. Reyes raises an eyebrow at him, and McCree throws a memory stick that Reyes catches and examines. He pulls a dented steel flask that Genji recognizes as McCree’s out of a pocket and hands it to him in return. McCree takes a swig, swishing it around in his mouth before spitting it out on the pavement. Reyes has another flask in his hands - battered, black - and he and McCree clink them together and take simultaneous drinks with a coordinated ease that borders on ritual.

“You have any problems with him?”

“Do I ever?” McCree grins, knowing and crooked, and the light glints off of a shining drop of white caught in his beard. 

They do what they have to do.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The first time Genji’s thrown into a real battle, it’s a disaster.

Not for Blackwatch, of course. Blackwatch is always fine, one way or another.

They’re at a warehouse fifty miles inland from Qaanaaq, and Genji didn’t know that it could get this cold. Greenland is dark around the clock this time of year, something that Reyes and his fondness for night missions was happy about. It was just supposed to be surveillance, seeing if Talon was planning on mining nearby the materials that were needed for omnics.

It turned out to be one of Talon’s secret outposts.

Genji loses track of people quickly - O’Deorain is outside somewhere, supposed to be dealing with anyone on watch or patrolling outside. McCree is in the back hallways, and Reyes is on the upper level. It’s his shout that makes Genji’s head - and that of a few dozen Talon members on the floor in front of him - jerk up, alerting him that their cover is blown. Genji has been slinking in the shadows, but now he draws his katana with one hand and flicks his shuriken into place with the other. With a roar of Japanese that comes unbidden from his throat, Genji throws himself into battle.

At first it’s fine, as much as it can be. He goes through his shuriken quickly, keeping a few in reserve. He draws his wakizashi, decapitating a man in the same motion. Everything after that is darkness and blood, and Genji starts to drift out of himself. His body is fast, almost too fast. It feels not his own, not something that he has control over. The electric red of his system overlay blinks in and out of place as he accidentally triggers it, and when his vision finally clears, it’s to see a dozen enemies in front of him.

Each one has Hanzo’s face.

Everything truly blurs out after that in a haze of rage and determination. Genji has not been able to use his family’s legacy - he is not sure if losing his tattoo is part of it or it’s just the trauma, and it is not something he would ever discuss with his doctors - but if emotion alone were enough then he could have powered a dozen spirit dragons in that moment.

Dimly, as if observing someone else from across a large room, Genji notices that there are fewer and fewer enemies around him. In the distance he hears Reyes yelling, telling McCree to rein him in.  _ Rein who in? _ Genji wonders as men fall like matchsticks in front of him. 

A leg comes out of nowhere to sweep Genji’s own legs out from under him. His head hits the floor, cushioned somewhat by the tubes coming out of the back of his headgear. The shock is enough to make him come back to himself, to pull his swords back just a bare few inches from McCree’s throat as he leans over Genji. 

Genji blinks up, dazedly. “I could have killed you.”

“Nah, you wouldn’t’ve. And I know how to protect myself.” McCree gives him a hand up off the floor. “Let’s get out of here before one of the bastards that slipped out sounds the alarm.” Genji follows him out, slipping a few steps in on the blood. There is...a lot of it. He’s not sure how many bodies are scattered around but it’s enough that he can’t count at a glance. Of course that might be because so many of them are in disparate pieces.

His debrief with Reyes the next day is awkward. Reyes is honest, doesn’t bother sugarcoating things for Genji. “You lost control,” he says bluntly. “It wasn’t an ideal situation, having this be your first real foray into bloodshed, but it doesn’t change the fact that it could easily have been our own men you took down.”

Genji is silent.

“I’m not benching you, and I’m not going to change the probation terms. I am saying no solo missions, however. McCree seems to be about as friendly as he gets with you, and you managed not to kill him. Get used to him because you’ll be partnered up as often as not after this.” For a moment Reyes looks tired, and Genji wonders what exactly happens during those hissed conversations that he and Morrison keep having in the corners of rooms. 

“There’s some shit coming down the pipe, so I’m going to be in the field less and I need Moira in the lab.” A memory stick is set down in front of Genji, presumably with orders on it. “What you should be is in therapy, but I need you in the field. Quick thing in Baton Rouge, just a smash and grab. After that McCree is going to be out of commission for about a month in Russia so I’m seconding you over to Overwatch.”

Genji nods, and when Reyes waves a hand in dismissal he takes the stick, bows, and leaves. 

-x-x-x-x-x-

In Louisiana, Genji finds himself out of sorts. It is too hot, there are too many drunken Americans wandering the streets, and everyone is loud and handsy. It’s enough of an omnic- and upgrade-friendly area that no one blinks at Genji, but that in and of itself is disconcerting. He’s grown used to looks of fear and discomfort, and being groped by tipsy fraternity boys like any other normal person is almost a shock.

They find the hotel that their target - some inforunner named Gheorghiu - is in easily, and spend the day moving from the bar to the restaurant to the fitness area and back again, waiting for the man to show. Once he does, McCree gets him to join him in a friendly game of pool, slipping Genji the fingerprints that he gets off of the cue discreetly.

Genji goes upstairs, uses some piece of technology Lindholm had created to get the room door open. He finds the locked briefcases they’re after quickly, opens them with the prints McCree obtained. Unfortunately Gheorghiu and his associates are canny, putting the information on paper instead of an easily copied memory stick. Genji sighs as he starts to scan each page. 

Halfway through, there’s a rattle at the door. Genji’s head jerks up, red eyes wide. There’s been no communication from McCree on the com...which is unusual, actually. Stepping on cat-light feet, Genji slips into a nearby closet. Seconds later, McCree stumbles into the room with Gheorghiu. He has one hand halfway down the back of McCree’s pants, and a half-full glass of liquor in the other. Genji can see McCree looking quickly around the room, zeroing in on the closet. Genji steps close to the slats, lets his eyes glow for just a second. McCree nods abruptly, before pasting a goofy smile on his face.

“Howsabout let’s take a shower first, darlin’?” he says, wrapping a hand around the back of Gheorghiu’s bald head and turning his face away from the closet. “Get all nice and clean f’r what I want to do to you.” 

Gheorghiu nods, shucking off his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster. McCree artificially widens his eyes, and the target quickly assures him that it’s just for his job. Unfortunately, when the man moves to toss his jacket on the bed, he pauses. Genji curses in his head - he left the last briefcase on the bed, and while it is closed the locks are undone. 

The target spins, listing just a touch in his tipsiness, and glares at McCree, hand inching toward the shoulder holster. “Who sent you? Why, I’m going to send you back to them in -”

He’s cut off by McCree stepping forward and snapping his neck with a quick movement. It’s fast enough that the man slumps to the floor, dead, before Genji can slide the closet door open. McCree nods to the briefcase as he grabs Gheorghiu under the armpits and starts dragging him away. 

“Finish up, we need to get out of here.” 

Genji quickly starts scanning the pages, finishing a few minutes later. He steps into the bathroom to find McCree has tied several of Gheorghiu’s ties together, looping them over the towel rack on the door. Gheorghiu is slumped on the floor leaning against the door, tie so tight around his neck that it is buried in the fleshy folds. McCree opens the man’s pants, positioning his hand around his sad, flaccid cock. Just a few minutes and a relatively believable autoerotic asphyxiation accident has been arranged. Genji watches as McCree sets a bottle of lotion by the body, then removes the shoes and socks.

At Genji’s questioning look, McCree shrugs. “No one ever jacks it in dress shoes.” 

With a considering nod, Genji follows McCree out of the room after a quick look around. The ease and speed at which McCree killed and arranged the man was...impressive. Something in Genji appreciates the competence and quick thinking on a base level. He quickly quashes the thought. He doesn’t have time or emotion to spare for appreciation.

On the way back to the airport, McCree tells Genji about the frequency disruptor he’d found in Gheorghiu’s pocket. “Sorry for makin’ it seem like I was leavin’ you in the lurch,” he says. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know,” Genji says, and realizes that he believes it is true. If nothing else, he trusts McCree as a teammate. That is...Genji is not sure how he feels about that. 

Trust is weakness. He’s learned that by now.

-x-x-x-x-x-

When they get back to headquarters, McCree is whisked off to Russia and Genji is slid over to Overwatch proper. He had expected to be sent on missions, but instead he is sent to the scientists.

Winston and Ziegler are far kinder than O'Deorain, and Genji doesn’t mind them documenting him. At the same time, there’s a cheeriness to the bright blue and yellow colors and shining personalities of Overwatch that Genji finds frustrating. As they assign him to various teams as support and he starts to go out on assignments, his frustration grows.

Don’t they know what they’re up against? How far-reaching Talon and the omnic extremists are? The agents go out on their missions, but they do their best to keep their hands clean. Time after time Genji sees mercy shown, but it only results in later bloodshed and mission problems. He watches as agents shoot to wound, and the enemy shoots to kill. He sees enemy combatants slip out of rooms, no doubt to alert their comrades, because someone was trying to use a stun grenade instead of one with shrapnel. 

Genji realizes that he’s been placed with the newer agents, the green recruits. He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to show them how to be harder, or they’re supposed to soften him. He has a meeting with Reyes, some weeks in.

“They just...do not understand the realities of battle! These - these children do fine when they need to destroy an omnic, but the moment there is a human element they are soft, weak. The last mission in Denmark? Multiple civilians died because Varda was not willing to kill a Talon agent who cut off his own hand in order to escape.”

Reyes watches him, eyes steady. “What would you suggest they do?”

Shrugging, Genji settles back in his seat. “Go back in time and have them witness the destruction that Talon can cause when they are children?”

Reyes snorts. “Sure, I’ll get Jack working on that right away.”

Genji thinks. “Show them the true cost. Make them look at the bodies that are caused because of their ignorance. Stop having teams of children, and integrate older members. Make them do cleanup, cataloguing the corpses. If they understand what the enemy is willing to do, perhaps they will not be so hesitant to strike back.”

The remainder of his time in Overwatch, Genji sees teams be shuffled around. He does not know that it is because of what he said to Reyes, but he is aware that Reyes and Morrison have some undefinable relationship that results in information exchange.

There is less needless civilian death, more mission success, and Genji is almost terrified that he has a hand in it.

-x-x-x-x-x-

McCree comes back from Russia quiet and thoughtful, almost melancholy. Genji is tempted to ask him what’s wrong, but they’re not quite at that level of friendship. He does ask how it went overall, and McCree gives him a tired smile, tells him everything went off without a hitch. He seems to be telling the truth.

A few weeks later, Reyes sends Genji and McCree out on a longer mission - two weeks in Burkina Faso to spy on Veronique Ouédraogo, the most powerful politician in West Africa whom Reyes suspects of using Talon to take out her political opponents. 

It’s frustrating - the country is vehemently against omnics, and the few times Genji pokes his head out of their safe house he narrowly escapes being detained or killed. He’s the one that speaks French, however, so he and McCree spend their days physically apart but tied together by coms. Genji translates on the fly, and McCree learns to listen and speak simultaneously while making it seem natural.

The whole thing is mentally exhausting, and Genji becomes semi-nocturnal so he can run along the rooftops at night and stretch his legs out. Unfortunately it is the season of the harmattan, the dusty trade winds that come over from the Sahara. The air is hazy with particles, and Genji finds that it clogs his ports even when he stays inside.

Their third night there, after twisting still raw flesh into pretzels to try and reach his back, Genji bows his head with a sigh before strapping his armor back on. He walks silently into the living room of the small apartment, where McCree is stretched out on the small sofa with a book. His long legs hang over the side, and their slow swinging stops when he notices Genji standing there. McCree is nothing but patience, and he waits quietly while Genji gathers himself.

“Would you be able to assist me with...something personal?” Genji finally asks. McCree nods and sits up, an eyebrow arched in silent question. “The dust of this place is not good for my mechanics, but I am having difficulties cleaning it out the way it should be.”

McCree gets up. “I’m assumin’ it’s - what, your back givin’ you trouble?” he says as he glances over Genji with a professional eye. Genji’s head bows in assent. McCree looks around the small space before gesturing to the small table that they eat at. “Best light’s there, go get whatever you need.”

Genji fetches the saline and the oil, the soft cloths and swabs. McCree has pulled the chair out for Genji, but before he can sit he has to remove his armor. It comes off piece by piece, and Genji is always reminded of their father’s strong hands cracking crab shells when he was a child and too young to do it himself, each shell section coming off perfectly and completely to reveal the soft flesh underneath.

McCree has seen him without the facemask, but no one bar surgeons and scientists have seen Genji without the rest. He hits the releases, one after another. First to disconnect the tubes connecting his shoulder to the chest armor, his headgear to his back armor to his skin. The parts and parcels that now make up Genji Shimada. McCree watches with fascinated eyes, as the black, red and beige is stripped away.

He is left with the bare minimum - metal legs and arm, carbon fiber reinforced throat, skintight black underwear. Black hair, lightly tanned skin, red scars. He’s as naked, both physically and metaphorically speaking, as he has been in years. 

Genji keeps his head bowed as he sits. McCree takes the saline and a clean cloth without asking, starts to wipe down the accumulated desert dust. He’s more thorough than Genji usually is with himself, and he’s startled at the sensitivity of his skin with someone else touching it, even though it’s through a cloth. 

There’s a long pause when McCree wipes at the edge of the armor along his right shoulder blade, long enough that Genji turns his head. 

“You had a tattoo,” he says, finally.

Genji’s back tenses, something McCree can unfortunately see, being so close. “What makes you say that?” he says, as evenly as he can.

A bare finger traces along the very edge of where metal meets flesh, to the side of what Genji knows is a livid scar. “Right here. There’s just a bit there, something...green? Green and black.”

It takes a long minute for Genji to respond, as he focuses on his breathing. “Yes, it used to go down my arm.”

McCree’s hands start back up again, and Genji can feel the tugging on the open ports in his left shoulder. “What was it, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

_ Everything,  _ Genji thinks _. It was everything and everyone I loved and hated. _ His tongue flickers out to wet dry lips. “Dragons and fire.”

The hands on his back slow for a moment, before the always semi-disturbing feeling of a swab in his ports trickles through him. “That a popular thing to have for tattoos in Japan?”

The shoulder that once held his family’s legacy lifts in a shrug. “It’s not an uncommon subject.” No one had tattoos like the Shimadas, though, and no one in Hanamura would dare to get anything even vaguely similar. 

“Must’ve been painful to lose it,” McCree muses, and Genji’s shoulders can’t help but shake in a silent laugh grown rusty from disuse.

_ Painful _ would have been a mercy.  _ Painful _ had nothing to do with physical pain, with the feeling of a fine-ground blade slicing over and over through inked skin to the fat and muscle underneath. The entire concept would never be able to touch what Genji felt looking up into eyes he once loved far more than he loved himself, that gazed down coldly as Genji’s strongest connection to his family was cut away, strip after strip of flesh excised until he existed only as red blood and white bone and black despair.

Genji’s eyes lock on the crimson tubes going in and out of his arm and suddenly needs to not be there anymore. He rises suddenly, leaving McCree standing there with a cloth in one hand, swab in the other, and a bemused look on his face. “Thank you for your assistance, McCree, I am sure it was enough.”

He leaves his armor on the table and steals a sheet from his bedroll. Genji’s night is spent up on the roof, staring at the night stars that are different than any he grew up with and wondering when he will be able to feel something that is not rooted in agony.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Genji continues to need McCree’s help - the mission is not over and the trade winds still blow. McCree seems to sense what went wrong the first time, though, and stays away from the subjects of Genji’s body and past. Genji, for his part, slowly gets used to another person’s hands on him. To his discomfort he starts to actually look forward to it, to McCree’s rough but steady fingers moving over the flexible metal and inflexible flesh that Genji is slowly starting to accept as his new home.

He never voices to himself, not even in his own head, how he misses the touch of another person - but one can’t take a lifelong extrovert and physically and emotionally isolate them without seeing some side effects. Genji just closes his eyes and lets himself come as close to relaxation as he can. He doesn’t know what McCree thinks or feels about any of it - he always has his back to the other man. Genji isn’t sure if it’s his own neediness and imagination or reality that makes him think that it takes a little longer each time, his hands gentler, slower.

The end of the mission is almost a surprise - Genji had eventually settled quite comfortably into their small existence in the corner of Ouagadougou, murmuring translations into McCree’s ear as he watched nature documentaries with the volume down during the day and explored the city at night. McCree’s hands on his back every other evening, his steady low snoring on the other side of the room a comforting presence. They gather enough information to say that yes, Ouédraogo is financed by Talon, and they have enough recordings and photos for Morrison to deliver to the IJC to address. 

It takes a while to ease back into the training - short missions - paperwork - more training routine of Blackwatch when they’re on base. Genji is back to feeling uneasy in his own skin, and isn’t sure why. He spends one evening sprinting in circles around the roofs that make up headquarters then cuts holo manikins to bits in an empty training room, but none of it seems to help. He takes a long shower when he gets back to his quarters, the hot water sluicing away the sweat but not the shivers in his muscles.

He’s just slid on sweatpants when there’s a knock at his door. People don’t knock at Genji’s door - the only people to ever need him after hours would be Reyes or the scientists, and he gets calls on his tablet for those. He takes a glance through the peephole to see who it is, and makes the split second decision to toss aside the shirt he was about to put on.

“McCree,” Genji says when he opens the door, crossing his arms in front of his bare, scarred chest and leaning a hip against the doorway.

McCree is in either workout or sleep clothes - sweatpants identical to Genji’s and an ancient bleach-stained t-shirt. He seems awkward, fingers twitching in a way that Genji knows means he’s looking for a cigar or knife that doesn’t exist. “Hey, I just wanted to see if you - well, if you needed help with anythin’. Although now that we’re here I guess you wouldn’t…” His face goes through a variety of emotions as he realizes his reason for visiting is falling apart.

Genji is amused - he’s never seen McCree at a loss for words before, much less off-balance like this. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who felt more invested than perhaps appropriate in their evenings together.

If time travel were possible, it might have happened in that moment to Genji. In just a moment he shifts back in his own history, no longer Blackwatch Agent Genji, but instead Genji Shimada, the Playboy of Hanamura. Letting his mouth tug up into a smirk - and ignoring the way it pulls at the scars - he lets his hip shift a little more into contrapposto, aware of his loose sweatpants barely clinging to sharp hipbones. 

He waits until McCree’s eyes travel downwards to say, “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

McCree nods, follows Genji into his quarters, darkened and warm with steam from his shower. “I thought you weren’t supposed to drink much.”

Genji waits until he’s at the doorway from the tiny, unused kitchenette leading to his bedroom before turning around and saying, “I have nothing to drink here.”

McCree raises an eyebrow.

“Do you understand?” Genji says, raising an eyebrow of his own. He can tell that McCree doesn’t quite know what to do with this unexpected version of Genji, but he’s not leaving. He steps closer, in fact, and those hands that have touched Genji in the most innocent yet intimate of ways slide carefully around his waist. 

Genji rests his metal hand on McCree’s collarbone, playing with the loose collar of his shirt for a moment. His hand that is still flesh, still nerves that fire the way they should, comes up to trace a cheekbone, fingertips brushing over warm skin and the odd hair missed by the razor. His fingers slide delicately into McCree’s hair, before tightening. Hard. He pulls McCree down to him, not rough but as inexorable as the tide, until McCree crashes against his mouth.

It’s a hard kiss, teeth and lips and McCree’s scratchy facial hair scraping against sensitive skin. He barely notices when McCree’s hands slide lower to hitch him up, only realizing when his legs wrap around a muscled waist and McCree starts to walk them into his bedroom. It’s dark, the only light from moonlight streaming in through the windows. That’s...better, Genji thinks in the back of his head. His skin fades in the blued light, fuzzing the lurid marks into soft greys and purples. He can pretend, for just a bit, that perhaps McCree is a man he’s picked up in a club, snuck home to the castle and trying to avoid his - 

No, not that. 

They can just be here, with McCree’s hands sliding into his pants to cup his ass - nothing rebuilt there, thank you very much - and press Genji closer against him. Genji can feel McCree’s interest trapped between their bodies, and he has to pull away for a moment to catch his breath and stare at the ceiling at the idea of someone being interested in...this. 

This shell that Genji inhabits.

A sharp bite to his neck, and Genji gasps involuntarily. He looks down to see eyes made dark by the night looking up at him, lust and concern and things Genji can’t quite parse in his expression. “Where’s your head, darlin’?”

Genji leans down, catches McCree’s mouth in a kiss that’s too sweet for what they’re here for, but he does it anyways. “Right here,” he murmurs into his mouth before diving back in, working his tongue in a way that he knows will make - McCree moans softly - ahh, there he goes.

A few tugs and McCree’s shirt is gone, Genji’s hands moving over hairy skin and hard muscle and a respectable number of scars. Fingers dig hard into the space between McCree’s ribs as teeth nip at Genji’s lip, and muttered directions get him to walk them over to Genji’s bed, still rumpled from a restless night before. McCree lays Genji down, Genji’s legs letting go reluctantly and sprawling open, wide and suggestive. McCree holds himself up on his arms, one knee braced between Genji’s legs and a slight frown on his face as he takes in the reconstructed body below him.

“You can’t hurt me,” Genji says quietly. Never before has he said something that is such a truth and such a lie at the same time. 

He’s sure that McCree knows that, but he still nods and leans down to press Genji into the bed. They both lose their pants, leaving them with skin on skin on metal. McCree winces as the hair from his thigh catches in a joint that flexes closed. “Is there any way...can you…”

Genji shakes his head. “It’s all embedded into my flesh,” he says, softer than he intends to. He’s still not sure how he feels about it, that he cannot remove any of what is attached to him. It’s...him, now. For better or worse. 

“Can you feel anything in it?” McCree says, hand stroking down a metal thigh. Genji can feel the touch, but not in any way that brings pleasure.

“Not there. In my shoulder, some.” He takes McCree’s hand, moves it to his stomach and then slowly pushes it lower. “There are better places you could be touching.”

McCree grins, before ducking his head to scrape his teeth over a nipple. He works his way down his body, nipping and licking here and there. As he runs his fingers through the dark hair surrounding Genji’s cock, Genji spares a wistful thought for the days when he was perfectly groomed, shaved so clean his skin shone. McCree doesn’t seem to care, nosing his way down to gently suck one of Genji’s balls into his mouth, pulling a moan from Genji’s throat. 

Hair in disarray, McCree raises his head to look up at Genji. “Lube?” Genji takes a few seconds to come back to himself before nodding and reaching over into the nightstand. He’d sneaked it out of medical one day intending to use it on himself, but was met with limpness and a distinct lack of interest in his own body. As McCree slicks a finger up and slides it into him, Genji certainly can’t say he’s not interested now. He’s hard, almost painfully so, for the first time in...he doesn’t even know how long. 

As McCree’s head sinks down, wrapping Genji in warmth and wetness, Genji’s hand finds a way into McCree’s hair, trying to tug up. “Not going to last -” he says, overwhelmed by what his body is doing. McCree ignores him, other than to suck harder. Genji’s back snaps into an arch so fast it hurts, skin pulling painfully in the foreign position. It only adds to the sensation as his orgasm sweeps over him, equal parts pleasure and pain from nerves inside and out firing in ways they have never attempted with his new body. It goes on for what seems like ages, but McCree doesn’t pull off or stop his finger from stroking slowly inside Genji.

It ends eventually, and Genji’s body slumps down, weak and overstimulated. To his hazy surprise, McCree slides up, pulling Genji close to him. He gives him a quiet, lazy kiss, and when Genji teases his mouth open with his tongue he can taste a familiar saltiness, made new by combining with McCree’s own flavor. 

He can feel McCree hard against his thigh, but he doesn’t seem to have any interest in moving past the slow, drugging kisses he keeps giving Genji. When Genji slides a shaky hand down, McCree pulls it back up with a murmur into his mouth of, “Time for that later. Sleep.” 

Genji pushes at McCree’s shoulder until he’s on his side, and Genji fits himself along his back. He tangles a hand in the hair of McCree’s chest, and breathes quietly into his neck as he feels the heartbeat against him slow into the rhythms of sleep.

Looking out the window at the moon shining over the hills of Switzerland, Genji is unsure of what he just got himself into.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Thoughts of morning sex and paying back orgasms are dashed by McCree’s tablet going off in the early hours of the morning. He unentangles himself from Genji before rubbing at his eyes as he stabs halfheartedly at the screen. 

“Fuck. I forgot, Reyes an’ me are goin’ to Rome, some shit about Talon he wants to go over with the guy there.” McCree looks over at Genji, stretched decadently out in bed with the sheet low on his hips and messy hair in his eyes.

“You goin’ to be here when I get back?”

Genji, eyes half-lidded, gives a lazy shrug. “I am not planning on going anywhere.” His voice is raspy with the early morning and biting back noises the night before.

McCree rolls his eyes, leans over to give Genji an easy, close-mouthed kiss. “You know what I mean.”

With a small quirk of his lips, Genji nods minutely. “I am not planning on going anywhere, McCree.” McCree pulls back with a smile on his own lips that he doesn’t seem to be aware of. He searches for clothing, and Genji appreciates the early morning sunlight on his bare skin as he walks around. When he catches Genji watching, Genji just gives a satisfied smile in response.

“Hurry back, McCree. We have unfinished business.”

McCree laughs, soft and easy. He’s gone with a lazy salute and a grin that disappears behind Genji’s door.

The next time Genji sees McCree, the smile is gone and he is covered in ash and blood.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Venice...happens. 

It is what it is, in Genji’s opinion. One major enemy is dead, dozens of minor ones dispatched to whatever hell awaits them. It appears that it is not so easy for McCree, however. He and Reyes argue over Antonio’s dead body, argue more on the battlefield, nearly come to blows on the Orca coming back and stalk off in separate directions when they finally get back to headquarters. For the first time during their acquaintance Genji shares a moment of complete understanding with O’Deorain as they exchange glances and silently decide that it is none of their business.

Genji has a late night cup of tea in the Blackwatch kitchen after he showers the blood off, and on his way back he pauses by McCree’s door. After a moment of indecision he knocks gently on the door. The door is yanked open and McCree’s body language says he’s ready for a fight, physical or otherwise. When he sees it’s Genji he - slumps. 

Taking a step forward, then another, Genji is brought to a halt by McCree’s heavy head coming to rest against his shoulder, arm loose around his waist but his hand tight in the fabric of Genji’s shirt.

“McCr -”

“No,” he cuts Genji off with a hard kiss that tastes of tobacco and liquor and copper. “Just - help me not think for a bit.”

Genji nods, and follows him inside.

McCree needs to touch, apparently. ( _ almost as much as Genji needs to be touched _ , he thinks greedily in the back of his head) He strips off Genji’s overlarge sweatshirt at speed, running his hands over skin that always seems too warm now with so much metal attached to it.

He realizes with bemusement and not a bit of surprise that McCree’s hands go without hesitation or sight to the scars on his back, fingers pressing to trace skin that dipped in and bulged out. Genji realizes how much time McCree had spent looking at those scars during their time in Burkina Faso, how he must have memorized them. His mouth is hard on Genji’s, enveloping like he wants to swallow all of Genji’s sounds and take them into himself.

Genji is walked back into unfamiliar rooms, pressed down into messy sheets that smell like gun oil and have small holes burned through to the mattress from careless cigars. McCree flips him over, traces those scars with his mouth this time, and Genji can’t stop his fingers from clutching the sheets hard enough to make threads pop when there’s the scrape of teeth. Strong hands make Genji’s pants disappear then spread him open. Before he can feel anything more than surprise there’s a warm tongue lapping at him, and it takes everything in Genji not to grind down and get himself off against the mattress.

Slicked fingers that Genji has watched field strip a rifle in the time it takes to draw breath work their way inside of him, and he hisses as gun callouses catch on his sensitive rim. He turns his head, watches as McCree stares down at Genji stretched out around his hand.

“Slow,” Genji says, and McCree looks up at him with dark, wild eyes that make Genji turn his voice soothing. “It’s been years.” It had been - so long alone, and then before that - 

Well. Let’s not dwell on the before.

Genji closes his eyes and twists his hips with a near-forgotten sensuality, pushing himself back onto McCree’s fingers and forward then back again. He finds himself flipped over, one hand still inside him and the other on his sternum, McCree’s face inches from his with his hair hanging around their faces.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” he says, voice low like a threat, like a promise.

“I’m just waiting on you, McCree,” Genji replies, and he gets the flash in McCree’s eyes that he wants, that he craves. It’s been a day of bloodshed and frustration, and he is perfectly willing to have McCree fuck his anger into him.

And that’s just what he does.

McCree isn’t overly long, but is thick enough that it takes effort on both their parts to work him inside Genji. It’s good, once he’s in, a space in this still half-strange body that Genji didn’t know needed to be filled. They move well together, each man with a string of partners behind him long enough to let experience smooth over the gaps of unfamiliarity with each other in this context. 

McCree is powerful and Genji is smooth, and together they become a machine of perspiration and groans, their grips on each other sliding as they go faster, harder. McCree is slamming into Genj hard enough that he’ll have bruises from the metal edges of Genji’s thighs, but he seems not to notice as he finally pushes in tight and stays there, trembling and twitching through his orgasm. Genji runs his hands through sweat-wet hair as McCree slowly comes down from it, starts to thrust again. Lazier, slicker, one hand around Genji’s cock as he jacks him with hand deliberately slow but tight.

Genji is still unused to pleasure in this body, and he comes unexpectedly, pulsing in McCree’s grip as a thumbnail rubs almost cruelly below the head of his cock. It’s perfect and then too much and then far too much, and McCree doesn’t let go until Genji grabs his wrist hard enough to feel bones shift.

It’s McCree that wraps himself around Genji this time, barely bothering to pull out before tugging the smaller man close into his arms. Genji would very much like to clean up what he can feel smearing between his thighs, but he understands that McCree needs this right now. 

This time it’s Genji who falls asleep first, and as he does he is almost angry at how he feels comfortable enough to do so.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Genji and McCree are...Genji and McCree. They spend as much time apart as they do together, on separate missions, separate countries, separate continents. Even on base they don’t always sleep together - both men are loners by nature that need their space. When they want to, though, Genji knows to find McCree tucked behind the vents on the roof that give a view of the valley with cigar in hand and McCree knows to look up in the catwalks of the training rooms to find Genji folded into himself and meditating.

They argue, over missions and minor things. More and more about how Blackwatch is doing, though it’s less arguing with each other and more...arguing against the world. Genji knows that Reyes asks McCree to do things sometimes that are off the books. When he comes back from one of those missions that aren’t missions, Genji lets McCree fuck him into the mattress with less lube and less stretching that they normally do, lets him tuck his face into the curve of Genji’s neck afterwards and breathe in his scent. 

Those nights Genji strokes a gentle hand along shoulder blades that are sharper than they used to be, and wonders what is going to become of them.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Genji is training with one of Overwatch’s new recruits - some quick girl who keeps showing up where he doesn’t expect it in flashes of light. He’s reluctantly impressed with her, until Morrison calls a halt to it. He meets with Winston and Ziegler afterwards to give the usual debrief - they’ve started using Genji as a crash test dummy with recruits with unknown abilities. Between the upgrades and his unnatural speed, he could take pretty much whatever was thrown at him and could get out of the way of whatever he couldn’t. 

While walking back to his quarters for a shower, Reyes falls in step with him. They walk for a while, Genji following when Reyes jerks his head to the side to direct him down a hallway. They end up in the Blackwatch kitchens, and Genji watches as Reyes makes coffee for them both, then dumps a healthy shot or so of whisky in the mugs.

They drink in silence for a minute before Reyes sighs and leans back in his chair. “McCree is abroad, as I’m sure you know. Coming back from…”

“Something Morrison shouldn’t know about?” Genji offers drily when Reyes trails off. 

Reyes tugs his hat off, scrubs a hand through what’s left of his hair. “Well, he wasn’t supposed to, but now the cat’s out of the bag. Caught me surveilling him, but it looks like it was necessary enough that Jack’s sending out a team of his own. That girl you were working with today will be on it.”

Genji sits back, considers. “She’s certainly good enough, abilities-wise.” 

“You think she can kill?”

A shrug. “She certainly seemed willing enough to take me out.”

“It’s on her home turf, hopefully that’s enough to keep her focused.” They lapse into silence once more. Genji waits - Reyes wouldn’t take him aside just to talk about some new recruit.

“I’m calling in your credit,” Reyes says, finally. He looks at Genji with penetrating brown eyes, raises his brows to silently make sure he knows what’s meant.

Genji takes a deep breath, happy that it is hidden by armor and faceplate, and gives a small nod. “What do you need?”

-x-x-x-x-x-

When Reyes tells Genji that no one has seen Hanzo since about two weeks after he was taken in by Overwatch, he isn’t sure what to feel. Relief, that he isn’t going to have to deal with his brother. Rage, that he won’t be able to face him. Regret, at...everything. 

He wonders where Hanzo is, what he’s doing. Nothing good, he’s sure - Hanzo never did do well with regulating his emotions, he tended to internalize and surround himself in a cold shell. He’s alive, Genji is certain of that. If Hanzo died he...he would feel it, somehow. His dragon, dormant as it is, would feel it. 

Genji, in his heart of hearts, isn’t sure how he feels about that.

He draws maps for Reyes over the new few weeks, sketching out each level of the castle and the patrol routes. He warns him that his information is all out of date, that he has no idea what Hanzo or the elders might have changed. He writes up personality profiles of the clan elders, each sentence more bitter than the last. The file, at the end, is a document full of everything that Genji despises about himself and his past. He holds the memory stick in his metal hand and dreams of crushing it into shards of plastic and silicon, imagines Shimada Castle crumbling as well into so much dust.

Reyes takes the information with a nod, and Genji catches him by the arm before he can leave. He ignores the fact that no one bar Morrison or McCree ever touches him, because this is too important. “I don’t have to come - would rather I didn’t but...please let me know when you move on the family.” 

Moving his glare from Genji’s hand on his arm to his face, something in Reyes’s expression - not softens, but smooths out a bit. “I will,” he says, and Genji believes him, stepping back with a nod.

In bed late at night with McCree, Genji stares at the ceiling as the sweat and come dries on his chest. McCree’s head is heavy on his breast, breath steady but not asleep. “I don’t know if I want him dead or not,” he says abruptly.

He’s told McCree bits and pieces over the months, enough that he knows that it’s his brother who did this to him, who made him into who - what - he is now. McCree shifts his head, sleepy eyes moving up to meet Genji’s.

“Is it him bein’ dead, or is it that you want to do it?” he asks, and the words seem so much heavier in the quiet than they are.

Genji doesn’t answer.

A few weeks later McCree comes to Genji’s door late at night, tapping in the code that Genji had given him long ago. He comes in and sits on the edge of Genji’s bed, looking out the window. Genji pushes down the covers, sets his book aside. He reaches over and runs a hand down the familiar landscape of McCree’s back, and the other man leans into the touch.

“What’s wrong?” Genji asks, after long minutes of stillness. McCree is a far quieter person than people would think, but Genji has learned his various silences over the years and this is one born of anxiety.

“Reyes is sendin’ me out on a mission.” That’s unusual, in and of itself - Blackwatch is but a memory now, living on only in McCree, Genji, and Reyes. After the Venice disaster and the media implosion thereafter, they were all but shut down. McCree’s jaunt in London was the last of the secret little assignments that Reyes had been giving him as well. Now they go out on Overwatch missions, nearly always split up.

“What’s it for?” Genji asks with interest.

McCree shakes his head. “It’s...I can’t,” he says, exhaustion and regret in his voice. Curiouser and curiouser - they keep little from each other, these days. For McCree to not tell him, it must be something major.

More silence. “I don’t know if I’ll be coming back,” McCree says. “It’s - it’s that kinda mission.” 

Genji reaches up, tugs at McCree’s shoulder. “Come, then,” he says gently. “Let’s make the best of it that we can.” 

McCree falls on top of him, kisses him deep and sweet. They lose clothing slowly, touch each other slower still. Genji doesn’t know if McCree is right, but whether he comes back or not he needs it right now. Genji ends up on top, a position McCree loves because he gets to look at all of Genji, but Genji hates because he feels like he’s exposing his soft underbelly, even as his body is hard with muscle. Even as he trusts McCree as much as he trusts anyone in this world. McCree’s fingers are too tight on his hips, though, and so Genji lets him move his body up and down in the rhythm he needs.

Genji comes quickly, McCree hammering into his prostate with as much accuracy as his weapons fire, hand tight around Genji’s cock. Genji sighs his way through it, enjoying the feeling of McCree in him and around him. He braces himself on McCree’s shoulders, lets the other man work his hips up and down like a toy made solely for his pleasure. It takes a while, long enough that Genji gets sore and sensitive, but he lets McCree keep going until he comes with sobbing breaths. 

He pulls Genji down into his arms, ignoring Genji’s release still damp and tacky between them. Strong hands stroke up and down his back and lower, reaching down to touch skin thin and stretched tight around McCree, back up over scars new and old. Though his hips ache and there is phantom pain firing through his knees, Genji doesn’t move. His own fingers stroke through tangled chest hair, smoothing over the familiar pebble of a nipple. 

Genji realizes, unexpectedly, that he doesn’t want to give this up. Not just the sex, not just the professional partner, but - McCree. He doesn’t want to lose McCree. 

They lay together the rest of the night in silence, and neither man sleeps.

-x-x-x-x-x-

McCree leaves the next day with his usual smile and tip of his hat, but Genji can’t smile back. 

Genji goes on with his life as though nothing has changed, but of course it turns out that everything has. He sees Reyes and Morrison with their usual hushed conversations, but there’s an air of desperation to them, now. Morrison’s hair gets whiter seemingly overnight, the bags under Reyes’s eyes get darker. 

He notices, a few days in, that Ana Amari is gone.

Genji has never had much contact with Captain Amari - his commander is Reyes, and on occasion he consults with Morrison. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t see the holes, how Morrison and Reyes turn automatically to say something, and then pause when they realize that no one is there. 

A tripod with only two legs has no balance.

Once too many weeks have gone by with no McCree and no Captain Amari, Genji shows up in Reyes’s office. He stands in the doorway and looks at the sea of paper that has taken over the commander’s desk, the dozen tablets that have pictures and articles pulled up, each more dire than the last. 

It takes a solid minute for Reyes to notice Genji, another indication that something has gone wrong. Gabriel Reyes doesn’t need time to notice people. He gives Genji a tired smile, gestures for him to come in. Genji seats himself, ignoring the stack of files on the chair underneath him.

“If this is about your family -”

“You sent McCree after Amari,” Genji says bluntly.

Reyes stares at him for a moment. “He told you -”

Genji shakes his head. “No. He honored you too much for that. I have eyes, though, and I know you.” Knows how Reyes uses McCree, a weapon he’s carved to the shape of his hand. Genji doesn’t exactly disapprove, but - this is McCree. His McCree. Their McCree.

Reyes bows his head, and he looks every one of his years when he raises it. “We lost contact with him after the first week. I’ve checked every dead drop that we set up over the past decade, and there’s nothing in any of them. We had a protocol in place for deep cover missions like this. Four weeks without contact and assume the worst.”

A deep breath. “How long.”

“Five weeks as of three days ago.”

Genji feels as old as Reyes looks right now. His family is gone, Blackwatch is gone, McCree is gone - 

He feels dizzyingly light and unsteady, like he’s had weights on him his entire life and they’ve suddenly been cut free. “I think -” he starts. Then: “Is my payment considered adequate?”

Reyes looks confused for a moment, until his face clears then closes up. “Yes. Yeah, it’s - you’re good. You want me to start the paperwork?”

Genji gives a jerky nod, then stands and leaves without saying anything further. He makes his way through the halls, types in a code that his fingers know well enough that his brain doesn’t have to engage.

He flops back on an unmade bed that’s covered in singe marks and smells like the closest thing to home he has. Genji curls on his side on the pillow that he doesn’t normally use, and breathes in the scent of McCree’s hair. He knows that he’s being pathetic, being too soft, but it’s one more thing in his life that has been taken from him and Genji…

Genji is tired.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he gets up the next morning rubbing at eyes that have crusted shut. He looks blearily around the room, sees without even trying a dozen things of his own that have migrated here over the months, knows that there’s just as much of McCree in his own space. Genji stands, grabs a few items. A lighter with the Deadlock symbol on it, a green serape that McCree always insisted looked better on him anyways (preferably with no clothing underneath, he’d say with a smirk), several battered paperbacks with notes from both of them in them.

A life, lived in just a few objects and even fewer years.

Four days later, Genji boards an Orca with a bag slung over his back. He’s clad in his newer fullbody armor, his older Blackwatch gear tucked into his bag along with a few knicknacks, bits of clothing, and various repair kits and tools. The Orca will take him to London, he doesn’t know where he will go from there.

As he turns his back on Overwatch, Blackwatch, and those that remade him, he realizes that for the first time in his short, cruel life - Genji Shimada is free.


End file.
